Why do clubs not pay DJ's more?

Just seen an ad for DJ's the pay... 150L per hour...

if the pay for DJ were higher I would have applied, but 150 per hour for a DJ, when sessions are usually 2 or 4 hours... that is like 300 to 600L per session...
$1.00 to $2.00 per session (US dollars) (roughly)

That is... sad

I suppose if someone just wants some SL spending cash it is faster than camping...

DJing is not easy, and the software for a good DJ (usually sam4) is not cheap (we are talking 300 US) and the music doesn't come cheap, also a good DJ will have his/her own stream DJing for that kind of money is ...

That is to say if the DJ is using his own music that he owns, (not ripped downloaded off of bearshare or something) and is using a legit sam

(well I suppose they could be using winamp)

but still... why do people pay DJ's so little money?
Quality DJ's should be getting paid a little more than 1 dollar an hour



I would love to get back into DJing, but I would want at least 3 or 4 dollars and hour (roughly 500L per hour)
I consider myself a good DJ
I have been told by many people (some of whom are in the music industry in RL) that I have the perfect voice for DJing the 80's rock that I tend to play the most,
I know how to keep the crowd entertained, own all my music, and have a legit Sam, and have no problem getting a stream if the clubowner prefers me to have my own stream.

sadly though, no one wants to pay for quality

Some work for tips with no pay I noticed.

yeah have seen that too

and being a DJ, and having done it off and on for about 2 years, I can definitely say...
the tips just are not there like they used to be

as soon as SL cut the stipend back and removed it for basic accounts, tips went out the window

anyone, be it dancer, DJ, host, etc that earn a lot of tips are doing DAMN good, or have a strong following

I was recently talking to someone about dancers, and she said that one of her dancers made 3000L in tips for the week and she thought that was good...

back when I danced (about 2 years ago) in SL, I was making 3000L in tips an hour, easy, then I took up DJing and some nights after a 2 hour slot, I would walk away 5000L richer

SL is not what it used to be

I agree to pay a fair price for a good dj. Many clubs are empty these days or filled with staff and just a few visitors. There are some quality clubs around, lot of jazz though.
I think it's a vicious circle. A good atmosphere might bring in some crowd and eventually attract a professional dj. Not just a mp3 player but a dj that brings in some entertainment.
Pay well, keep it going. Sounds easy I know but I think you need a few skills to run a real good club. A good dj is a vital part of it in my point of view. Bad music, bad voice, is most often deadly for atmosphere.

I wrote down your name Rhaorth..just in case

500L per hour is stil a bargain for a good dj

Clubs are already a money pit. That is why performers don't get paid much of a salary, or any salary. There are limits as to how much people will pay for entertainment in what many perceive as a game.

When you tip people for their time / services, do you tip the equivalent of a decent real world tip? Why, or why not?

There is a tension here about "doing it for the money."

Honestly, if you do anything in SL for the money, you should probably be doing something else, because you'll make more money faster with less stress and work.

Cristalle is absolutely right. A money pit, and like a baby bird demanding to be fed.

I don't offer (when I have a club) wages for a DJ. I host the stream myself, so there is no cost associated with that.

Cheapskate?

I work the crowd to make good tips - and I don't mean saying "show your Linden Love" because that phrase makes me murderous, frankly. Every event of size (and some short notice ones weren't) has been very good for the DJ in tips.

I do tip the DJ myself. Usually, for a 2 hour stint, with a good DJ, my own tip is 1000L.

Wages I don't think bring quality. A good DJ will bring in money, a good venue will bring in money, a good DJ in a good venue will be happy to play lots of stints a week for tips only, therefore.

The knack is finding the place that's good for your DJ style I guess.

(Thinking of doing a club again, heaven help me - do I never learn? Clearly not!).

***edit*** I should say minimum tip - unless someone wasn't sparkling on the microphone anyway. I do know a fantastic trance DJ, he was booked for a three hour set and played for SEVEN for the sheer enjoyment of being there. I gave him 2500L and he wouldn't take any more tips from me at all for a while. Just goes to show.

What most clubs on sl want is not a real dj but someone playing stolen 80`s music through winamp. I got into SL because of the music possibilities but found out soon enough that music is not tresured at all in SL. Come to think of it the same thing applies in rl right now with not many people wanting to pay for music ..

exactly

if the people who could play the music and get on a mic were limited to only those with a legit version of Sam and their own music collection, we would see a lot less DJ's

I understand that clubs are a money pit, I have one
I used to run it with events every night, but that stopped when RL stuff happened, I closed down and have reopened it a few times

I do not run events, I just have it cuz I like it, I have fond memories associated with it
and I offer up to any hopeful DJ that needs a place to play, practice or whatnot (they have to provide their own stream)

I would not be hiring said DJ, as I would not have anything to do with their event or whatever, I would be offering them a place to play their music (if they wanted to do it as an event I would be ok with that, up to them)

*shrug*
everyone expects everything for free in SL, because there are so many out there (both quality and lacking in quality) that give it for free

reminds me of what someone once said about escorts...
why pay for it, if I can get it for free?

I'm surprised more clubs don't charge modest admission fees. Very little proper use is made of the green 'pay for access' lines. I'd pay 10L$ to go to my favourite clubs each time. If a club gets 100 visitors a day, that's L$1000, or L$7000 per week, which is enough to pay a DJ for a couple of sessions.

I think it's because as long as there are clubs that don't people will just skip past the clubs that do charge admission without even knowing what they have to offer and also because the concept of a cover doesn't really work in sl for the same reason that the view is "there are plenty of places without a cover so why should I pay for one that has one for possibly but not guaranteed better quality"

peoples have been breastfed in thinking they have to be paid to attent an SL club, not the opposite.

Most DJs will earn a lot more than that in just tips. Make sure that the club provides you with a tipjar, or allows you to put out your own. Some clubs will take a small cut of the tips (5 or 10% is usual).

Heck yes. Whenever I attend a club I always tip the staff, to the tune of L$250 or so shared between them (with the DJ getting the majority share). I'd be happy to pay an admission fee of similar amount provided I was sure the staff were getting properly paid from that fee. Unfortunately I don't necessarily trust that club owners are paying the staff appropriately, so I'd far rather pay them directly and individually.

Djing is a lot of fun and if you are in the right club one tip would beat out your hourly pay..
We had a full staff of dj's and only so much money for the budget for them..
Each dj over time would build their own following and when they came on their fans would join in the club..
some worked the crowd and were good..some would play these long tracks and never speak on the mic but maybe once in a great while to show they were there..

some used sam and some used shoutcast..if your connection sucked it didn't matter which you had..with a good connection you can't tell the difference..
i had my own stream and would fill in from time to time but dj'd for free because i enjoyed it and enjoyed the people enjoying the music i played..
the ones that did it for money in the club working the crowd and building a following were making great tips..
the ones that road out long drawn out songs so they could go afk while their play list ran like a radio station didn't do as well in tips..
our club when i had left was paying 150 per hour at the time...the owner and staff learned from experience that DJ's tend to think they own the club after a while or are the main reason people are there..not all but some do get some serious egos..
so we dropped from 350 an hour to 150 after a major walk out because of one..
so if they wanted to work there and make money they had to work the crowd to get it..
to us a dj walking in asking for 1000k an hour said ego to us and we had too many wanting to dj already because the club is a place a dj could take off and get noticed..
the 150 an hour weeded out a lot of people we felt would have the attitude that they were bigger than the club plus made them work the crowd once they seen how well the others were doing working it..

I seem to think this used to be a lot more lucrative than it is now. On the other hand, my threshold of "SL extravagant luxury" used to be a lot lower, too, so that subjective assessment may be just wrong.

Anyway, it's pretty straightforward economics. Assuming the club aspires to break even, the DJ has to somehow attract enough more paying customers to make up the cost of paying the DJ. "Paying customers" as in the kind who throw money in the venue's tipjar (or, at the very least, throw a lot more money in the tipjars of dancers, hosts, and assorted flunkies who would otherwise have to be tipped by the venue owner).

Paying customers like that are kinda hard to come by, because there is just such an abundant supply of clubs. The "big spenders" are spread pretty thin. (Some DJs come with an entourage of big spenders that makes the arrangement appealing to a club owner.)

And it's not just clubs with DJs. (This isn't going to be a popular thing to point out, but...) DJs and Live Music are very nearly a zero-sum game. When I'm at a Live Music event, I'm not at a DJ'd event. I'm not scripting or building or exploring or anything either, but at least for me, it's the time remaining from scripting/building/etc that gets shared among more social events like music (DJ'd or live). So, whatever the demand is, it's kind of split between live music and DJs.

That was me offering 150L a hour for DJing. Back in 2005 I only offerred 75L a hour. I provide DJs the shoutcast stream when they DJ in one of my venues. I really don't expect seasoned DJs who want a substantial SL income to be attracted to these jobs. That is why I take no-experience noobs and walk them through the procedure of installing the trial of SAM Broadcaster 3 and using a few of the features.

I feel it's a win-win situation. A penniless noob who is thinking of logging off forever gets a skill, modest income and membership of a fun group. I always encourage them to take other classes and learn how to rez a prim so they can find their real place in SL. Some move in a matter of weeks and some have been with me since 2005.

I also charge $500L a hour when I DJ Special events. But I feel a guranteed staff position in a club does not have to pay that much. With a club gig the DJ can get a following established and know they have two to three gigs a week which translates into a guranteed income.

The answer is quite easy: They get them for that price.

Most SL inhabitants are cheapskates. Maybe a bit blunt but it is just the truth. Free accounts, No payment info on file, just some lindens from camping. They will attend the clubs and events, but not have much budget to tip. And they probably will not enter clubs that charge admission fees, since there will be enough clubs left that don't.

Now I do not socialize a lot, but if I go out I do give tips. Spending 1000 linden for a few hours of fun is cheap, we are talking not even 4 dollars here. DJ, event hosts (if they do a good job) and never forget the house. Too many people forget it is the house (ie: clubowner) that pays for the DJ and the staff.

Some time ago I went to a live act in a blues club. Now I did know the owner of the club (you know who you are ). She payed a lot of money to get the act into her club.
At the end of the event, the live band got tipped a few thousands, and the club a few hundred. One more reason to not pay the artist, wether its a live act or a dj, too much: they will get their pay anyway, if they are good.

Probably going to get slammed for this one.

If you don't see signatures, you may not know that I closed my club on July 4.

I had DJs who worked for 150L...because that was what they asked for. I also had DJs who wanted 500L an hour, like what you want to be paid.

So, here we are again with the discussion about the house getting paid. You and other DJs want that kind of money, but ya'll rez your own tip jars which don't split with the house...so the house essentially has to pay you from your pocket, and not get any of your tips.

Sorry, but I see it as pretty unfair.

Edit: And I had the stream to offer the DJs...but they always preferred to use their own. So that doesn't have to be a DJ expense.

If they won't pay admission for a concert, there's no way they'll pay admission just to come visit a club, where they're expected to tip the hosts, the DJs, the owners.

It's that whole sense of entitlement thing we were discussing about a week ago.

Part of the problem is, to many damn clubs! At one point there was a count of roughly 30000 Clubs listed in SL, so if you consider that each club at least has a DJ and Host on staff during an event, well that does not mean many patrons to go around. I think because of this many of the "Better" clubs are cutting pay, or kicking out the "Good" dj's for the cheap ones trying to protect there bottom lines though cuts. It is extraordinarily hard for any of us good DJs to get much more than 200 to 400 an hour out there now, and that roof is falling as clubs willing to pay 400 L$ an hour either close or cut pay. I am personally waiting for a club economy crash to force out, or close down a lot of these clubs so the strongest stand. With far less competition in quantity my guess is that these clubs would then start competing with each other on quality and be willing to pay the linden for talent, not keep using bargain basement DJs as the current trend seems to be at alot of clubs.

it is not just you that pay that, some pay less, some (as mentioned) pay nothing

I was more curious why DJ's (quality DJ's) are paid so little (not saying I disagree with said reasons, I KNOW a club is a money pit, and that paying for a DJ comes usually out of the owner's pocket)

ah I did not mention tip jars (I did mention that tips are very very much less than they used to be)
If I were hired at 500L an hour, I would not rez a tipjar, unless the owner wanted me to sign in on a split tip jar
I was refering to the position as DJ when there are no tips

The sad part is, concerning so many clubs, I rarely see any events listed(ya know the kind, best in whatevers hehe)
I remember the day when you would open the events listing, ad there were event upon event that you could go to...

not anymore (events listings suck)

Many people view this as a game, not a viable business. Knowing that it's a money pit, do you really pay people what they're worth? Minimum wage is expensive on SL scale precisely because most people view this as a game.

They are there. We had two events every day and both were listed in events. Posting was part of the hosts' job description and my manager and I both checked to see if they were doing their jobs.

Sadly, you can't see the forest for the trees...the event spammer trees